Audio clips to augment Topeka history

Brown to Brown tour will feature 16 audio clips

Topeka residents, tourists and especially children now have a unique opportunity to experience the city’s history firsthand — through the telephone.

The National Park Service on Wednesday released clips of several of the city’s historical sites as part of an audio tour, named “Brown to Brown: Topeka’s Civil Rights Story.” People can call (785) 338-4041 to listen to the one-minute clips, which describe the historic places throughout Topeka covering the Civil War to the civil rights movement.

“The audio tour is an easy way to reach a lot of people that otherwise we would not be able to talk to,” said David Smith, superintendent of the National Park Service. “It’s a way to get out a historical message of why Topeka is special. A lot of people don’t realize just how the battle of civil rights was fought out in our town, going all the way back to the Civil War.”

At least nine of the 16 audio files were expected to be completed by the end of the day Wednesday, Smith said. He said he hoped the rest of the files would be ready by next week. The National Park Service will release brochures detailing the sites and their locations by the end of October.

The National Park Service partnered with several historical societies in the city to produce the audio files. So far, the park service has spent “a couple thousand dollars on the tour,” Smith said.

That cost is expected to increase by $5,000 to $10,000, he said, with the expected installation of signs marking the sites.

All told, the tour should take about two years to complete, Smith said.

Sites featured on the tour include Constitution Hall, which served as the state’s Capitol during most of the Civil War, and Sumner School, the all-white school where Oliver Brown sought to enroll his daughter, initiating the historic Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case.

The parks service also has scheduled an open house, complete with a food and drinks, a live band and historical re-enactments, for 5 p.m. Friday at Constitution Hall, 429 S. Kansas Ave. The event was sponsored by the Topeka law firm Woner, Glenn, Reeder and Girard, P.A.

Also on Wednesday, the park service revealed a billboard hanging on the north wall of the building housing Constitution Hall. The billboard — sponsored by the law firm — advertises the audio tours.